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Putin: Sochi has 40,000 officers for Olympics; Russia spending $48B to stage games

By Jason CorcoranBloomberg News

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin said 40,000 police and special services officers have been deployed in the Black Sea resort of Sochi to ensure security ahead of the Winter Olympics’ opening ceremony on Feb. 7.

“It means that we will protect our air and sea space, as well as the mountain cluster,” Putin said in an interview with foreign and domestic media recorded in Sochi Jan. 17 and televised Monday. “I hope that it will be arranged so that it will not be evident and, as I have already said, will not depress the participants in the Olympic Games.”

Putin said the government introduced a “special regime” to limit the movement of people and goods in the region on Jan 7. Russia is spending at least $48 billion to stage the games, more than any previous host nation.

Security has been stepped up across Russia since two suicide bombings killed more than 30 people on Dec. 29 and Dec. 30 in the southern city of Volgograd, about 645 kilometers (400 miles) from Sochi. Police said yesterday they were searching the city for Razmena Ibragimova, a woman they said may attempt a suicide bombing.

Sochi lies to the west of the Caucasus mountains, which stretch about 1,200 kilometers across Chechnya to Dagestan on the Caspian Sea, one of Russia’s most economically distressed regions. Russian forces have been responding to almost daily attacks in the Caucasus by Muslim extremists since the two separatist wars that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Russia will do “whatever it takes” to prevent a terrorist attack at the Olympics, Putin said in an interview broadcast Monday on ABC’s “This Week” program.

“We have adequate means available to us” including the Russian intelligence service and the military, he said. “If necessary, all those tools will be activated.”

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said on the ABC program that any possible attacks would be most likely against “soft targets” such as transportation systems outside the perimeter of the games. He said cooperation between Russia and the U.S. on security for the Olympics “could be a lot better” and that the U.S. has offered military assistance.

Echoing the concern about inadequate cooperation on security were Mike Rogers, R-Mich., who heads the House Intelligence Committee, and Michael Morrell, former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, both appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Putin said he doesn’t see any need for the repeal of Russia’s gay-propaganda law even after the measure prompted criticism within Russia and internationally.

“The law we adopted does not hurt anybody,” Putin said. “People of non-traditional sexual orientation cannot feel like inferior people here because there is no professional, career or social discrimination against them.”

The legislation passed in June carries fines for anyone providing information about homosexuality and pedophilia to people under 18.

Putin linked the law to Russia’s drive to increase the country’s slowing birth rates and pointed out that homosexuality is “still a criminal offense” in some U.S. states.

“Shouldn’t we hold any international competitions there?” he asked.

A U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2003 struck down state sodomy laws nationwide.

The Russian leader said he knows some people who are gay. “We’re on friendly terms,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr, one of the interviewers, in separate comments in Sochi. “I’m not prejudiced in any way.”

Responding to a question about allegations of graft involving the Olympic sites, Putin denied that there has been “big, large-scale instances of corruption” in their construction.

At $51 billion, the Sochi games are the costliest ever, surpassing the $40 billion spent by China on the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Putin said it is “premature” to talk about his participation in Russia’s 2018 presidential election.

“The worst and the most dangerous thing that can happen to a politician is holding on to power by all means and focusing only on this,” he said.

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